‘Diktats’ on renewable energy and energy efficiency?

Jessica Shankleman writes on the BusinessGreen website how the British Prime Minister protected national interests by ensuring that there is no binding EU energy efficiency target and the one for renewable energy is only binding at the EU level. The Prime Minister referred to avoiding binding ‘diktats’. One wonders what the real national interest is.

Cameron hails EU climate agreement as end to green energy ‘diktats’

David Cameron has hailed an “ambitious” deal struck by the European Union last week to slash greenhouse gases by at least 40 per cent by 2030, dismissing accusations from the Green Party that the lack of a binding energy savings target would harm the economy.

The Prime Minister today said the decision to avoid binding “diktats” to increase national renewable energy generation and reduce energy wastage would prevent costs “piling up” for industries, consumers and “hardworking families”.

Speaking in the House of Commons, Cameron declared that the agreement was “another example of where British leadership has helped the EU to step up and meet its international obligations, while at the same time protecting our national interests”.

The Council agreed to cut carbon emissions by “at least 40 per cent” by 2030 based on 1990 levels. Leaders also set a target to source “at least” 27 per cent of energy from renewable sources by 2030, but confirmed that the goal would only be binding at an EU level and would not be translated into specific member state targets.

Following intense lobbying from the UK, European leaders also resisted calls for a binding energy efficiency target, instead agreeing a voluntary goal to cut energy use by “at least 27 per cent” by 2030.

Cameron said that in rejecting national technology-specific targets, the UK would have “full flexibility” over “how we reduce our carbon, allowing us to do so at the lowest possible cost for businesses and consumers”.

“One of the problems we’ve faced in the past is that instead of just setting a binding target on carbon emissions, the EU has set binding national targets on things like renewables and energy efficiency,” he said. “These diktats over how each country should reach its commitments can pile up costs on our industries, consumers and families who don’t want to pay any more on their energy bills than they have to, and they create an unnecessary trade-off between cutting carbon emissions and promoting economic growth.”

However, Caroline Lucas, Green Party MP, said the Prime Minister was wrong to suggest that non-binding targets were good for business, arguing that a binding energy savings goal would have guaranteed €2.5tr in savings to consumers in the UK and across the EU. “Yet the UK opposed this,” she said. “How can the Prime Minister pretend this has got anything to do with leadership when experts are claiming this is a go-slow on efficiency and far from being good for industry it sends a strong signal for energy efficiency businesses to start to divest from the UK and from other European countries?”

Her comments echoed those of a number of green businesses, which said that the agreement is too weak to drive investment in the low carbon goods and services sector.

Many green businesses are now awaiting further details on how member states plan to meet clean technology targets that are meant to be met across the EU as a whole by 2030, but which may not be translated into member state renewables and energy efficiency policies.

But Cameron disagreed with Lucas’ argument, maintaining that binding energy efficiency targets would have “skewed the market” and proven more expensive than a single carbon target.

“We all want to see improvements in energy efficiency and we’re seeing them here in the United Kingdom and of course having a proper market for carbon and a proper price for carbon helps that to happen,” he said. “But what’s not necessary is to have additional nation state binding targets as well as the target for reducing carbon emissions, because what you do when you do that is skew the market and make sure you end up spending more money than is otherwise necessary to get the outcome that both she and I want, which is to tackle climate change.”